This is what we want to tell you: we weren’t clear.
And we’d like to make it right.
At the Community Coalition Against Human Trafficking, our work is driven by our four-point mission: awareness, training, intervention, and aftercare. While Grow Free Tennessee – the aftercare piece – is a BIG part of that mission, it is only one piece of the Community Coalition.
We were SO excited to share this new brand with you at the start of the year, that for some, the purpose of Grow Free Tennessee became lost amid the excitement of what 2017 would bring.
So here’s the need to know: Grow Free Tennessee is the name of the direct services arm of the Community Coalition Against Human Trafficking. Having this program brand enables us to engage with clients as advocates from “Grow Free Tennessee” instead of from the “Community Coalition Against Human Trafficking.” It’s more sensitive. It’s more positive. It’s more appropriate. Which is why we’ve given this new brand such a strong presence on social media, on our website, and throughout all of our communication. Because client care matters. And survivor experience is at the center of everything we do at the Community Coalition.
But Grow Free Tennessee is just one piece of the CCAHT. Grow Free Tennessee is our direct services program – just one part of our four-point mission. So the CCAHT raises awareness, trains and equips primary responders, oversees a locally focused task force, and provides aftercare services through Grow Free Tennessee.
We are proud of the Grow Free Tennessee brand and excited to see how it will grow as we strengthen our work in the direct services space. But we do want to be clear about our identity as an organization and the identity of our programs. So you’ll notice that CCAHT and Grow Free Tennessee are both discussed on our website. They will both have a visual presence on social media and in our communication channels.
But we did want to be clear about what this all means.
Because transparency matters. Communication matters. Authenticity matters. These things matter in our relationships with our clients as well as our relationships with the East Tennessee community. And embracing transparency, communication, and authenticity means embracing the bad along with the good. It means having healthy expectations of ourselves and of others. It means striving not for perfection, but for the best and most honest version of ourselves.
Which is why we want to tell you: we weren’t clear. But we hope that this has helped folks understand a little bit better the purpose of the Grow Free Tennessee brand and how it fits into the overall work and mission of the CCAHT.
Because we are the Community Coalition Against Human Trafficking.
And a big part of us is Grow Free Tennessee.
Questions? We’d love to talk with you.